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Cisco Intersight vs NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Intersight
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (14th)
NetApp Data Infrastructure ...
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
46th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (16th), Cloud Monitoring Software (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco Intersight is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights is 1.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Intersight1.5%
NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights1.4%
Other97.1%
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

HH
Systems Engineer at FNB South Africa
Automation and seamless incident handling transform operational efficiency
I would like AI to be more integrated into Cisco Intersight. It would be great to have a chat session mode AI so that when I am on standby and encountering issues, I could engage with it, much like ChatGPT. For instance, if I need to find commands for UCS Manager, it should provide that information.
Punit Waghela - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Limited
Reduces troubleshooting time and improves operational efficiency through a single console
NetApp technology, specifically NetApp Cloud Insights, has significantly impacted the way my customers do business. One customer had multiple components, such as a VMware environment, Cisco switches, NetApp storage, and backup tools. Previously, the customer had to monitor all these tools individually each morning by logging into every console to check for errors or performance issues. It used to take them about 1 or 2 hours, but after we installed NetApp Cloud Insights, the time spent was reduced to just 5 minutes with a single console where they could monitor everything. The customer can integrate their VMware servers, Cisco switches, and storage with NetApp Cloud Insights to quickly identify any problems and resolve issues efficiently, demonstrating a reduction in complexity and monitoring time. The values that NetApp Cloud Insights delivers to my customers are evident in real examples, such as an application team running their application on a single VM connected through a switch and storage. When they experience a performance issue, the VMware team needs to identify the source of the slowness, whether it's from the server, switch, or storage, which requires a time-consuming investigation of each component. Without NetApp Cloud Insights, this process is slow and stressful for both the application team and the VMware team, but with the tool, a single click allows the customer to pinpoint the issue directly, improving response times to performance problems immensely. The evolving cybersecurity landscape and the proliferation of AI highly influence my customers' technology decisions, as having NetApp storage in their environment allows them to detect ransomware attacks effectively. NetApp guarantees data recovery in case of such attacks, and here, NetApp Cloud Insights plays a crucial role; it can identify where a ransomware attack originates, allowing the IT team to respond rapidly, such as disconnecting affected devices to mitigate the damage, especially crucial when multiple users are involved.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Intersight can validate our environment."
"Cisco Intersight has valuable features for workflow automation and inventory administration."
"Scalable portfolio of services for remote device management, with good cloud integration. It's also easy to set up."
"It offers visibility and optimization of workloads, which are very important features for a company."
"Cisco Intersight is a very effective tool for data center infrastructure management."
"Intersight offers many features that provide great value to companies."
"This solution has provided time savings and required fewer people to operate this tool."
"What I like most about Cisco Intersight is its manageability."
"Cloud Secure is definitely the most valuable feature and being able to see file level activity. It gives real-time alerting on possible ransomware attacks and provides file security review. It helps us to see if something abnormal is happening on the system before it's too late."
"Among the most valuable features are the queries and reporting that allow us to look at the utilization of resources, at how well the storage is performing, and to report on which resources are being used by which business units. We can track usage across the entire environment, across applications, business units, cost centers, etc."
"The visibility and assistance with security vulnerabilities are valuable, for example last year we had an issue with log forgeries but it was easy to fix because the dashboard highlighted the issue and provided solutions."
"The visibility and assistance with security vulnerabilities are valuable."
"NetApp Cloud Insights helps with login monitoring and troubleshooting. Previously, if we had performance concerns or needed to interface with other groups and their products, a task that should require only one or two people turned into a six-person job."
"What it provides to us has extreme value, helping us to get the full utilization out of our investment in storage."
"The solution’s ability to quickly inventory our resources, figure out interdependencies across them, and assemble a topology of our environment—the performance and metrics and dashboards for doing that—is amazing."
"One feature we appreciate the most is its ability to take snapshots, which adds an extra layer of security and allows us to protect our data effectively."
 

Cons

"More products should be made compatible with iWORK, including more software and hardware."
"The firmware management in the S-Series is not as Cisco described when we purchased it. You should be able to manage firmware without bringing the host down, but that is not the case."
"In the future, the solution needs to plan on an extension to cover a broader range of objects since, at present, there are some Cisco devices within the range of Intersight UCS that it can't manage."
"The product could be easy to use, similar to CloudIQ."
"The product's setup should be easier."
"Cisco Intersight's license cost is very high compared to AWS and Azure solutions, which have lower initiation costs. The high initial cost is a significant concern."
"Cisco Intersight needs some improvement in terms of stability. Hybrid cloud management and proper hyperscaler tie-up are other areas for improvement."
"It's a very complex solution."
"In my opinion, one area where NetApp Cloud Insights could be improved for the next release is the console, which I find a bit complex."
"Their pricing model needs improvement."
"Ease of reporting is one thing that they're trying to tackle. If you have a specific set of data you want from Cloud Insights, you can ask NetApp to help you build the reports from the ground up. The dashboards are intuitive, but finding the report you want is sometimes a challenge. If you don't have the report already loaded, pulling it in and letting it build its data can be cumbersome."
"There is room for improving the creating and managing or modifying of reports. That is still a difficult task to do and requires knowledge beyond the storage itself. I would love to see reporting improved so that we can create reports by dragging and dropping pieces into a report form and publish a report that way."
"When I did need support because I was having problems with the solution, the first or the second line just didn't understand it. They were providing this only on a software as a service basis. So, they were asking all the wrong questions."
"The biggest challenge though is the licensing model for Cloud Insights. For example, for our environment, the price of purchasing was close to the price of the storage itself, which is why we didn't actually pursue using Cloud Insights further."
"The IP-based monitoring could be added in a future release."
"The visualization needs some improvement because there are occasional delays while the system queries information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Intersight is not cheap, but it's not the most expensive product either."
"It's just the standard licensing cost. There are no additional fees."
"The product is cost-effective."
"Cisco Intersight has competitive pricing. On a scale of one to five, my rating for its pricing is four."
"You can get a free license for monitoring but need to purchase a license if you need extra control."
"We are billed based on management units, so we can purchase units based on six months, twelve months, twenty-four months, or thirty-six months upfront or pay as you go depending on our requirements."
"Be aware of the capacity licensing and understand how that works, because it is based on capacity. Getting an understanding of that is the biggest thing."
"The solution's pricing is based on the device you purchase and includes support services."
"The licensing is complex. The calculation depends on what you're ingesting. A terabyte of one product is not a terabyte of another product. Virtual machines don't equate so easily. It's all about the end-use managed units and having an easy place to reference how far those units go."
"The licensing model could be improved. We love that you can use it for free for looking at NetApp products. You only need licenses to look at non-NetApp products, but as soon as you do that, you start utilizing licenses that actually would have been free in the public. So, there is a bit of an anomaly in the licensing model."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Intersight?
The firmware management in the S-Series is not as Cisco described when we purchased it. You should be able to manage firmware without bringing the host down, but that is not the case. Unfortunately...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Intersight?
We are a cloud provider serving customers with IaaS.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Intersight?
I have experience with B-Series, C-Series, and S-Series equipment. I would recommend the S-Series but not the C-Series. I would rate this solution an eight overall.
What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Insights?
In my opinion, one area where NetApp Cloud Insights could be improved for the next release is the console, which I find a bit complex. Even though I work with NetApp, it still takes time for me to ...
What is your primary use case for NetApp Cloud Insights?
It is a monitoring and analysis tool. In our environment, we have different technologies such as VMware, Nutanix, or maybe a backup tool. Instead of monitoring them through different consoles, with...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp Cloud Insights?
NetApp Cloud Insights delivers significant efficiencies in addressing performance issues as experienced by an application team running on a single VM. The VMware team must methodically check each c...
 

Also Known As

Intersight
Cloud Insights
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EXMAR, RapidScale
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Intersight vs. NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.